Volunteers take the beaches to the cleaners

Jenny Marder

Volunteers along the coast will scour beaches this weekend for soda

cans, cigarette butts, Styrofoam and anything else that litters the

sand and surf.

Several different organizations are launching events for Earth

Day, which is today.

Huntington and Bolsa Chica state parks will join 42 other

California state parks and thousands of other volunteers in a massive

statewide cleanup Saturday.

Volunteers of all ages are encouraged to take part in the

California State Parks Foundation’s annual Earth Day Restoration and

Cleanup. One of its sites is Huntington State Beach, where workers

will clean up along the berm and around the fire rings, planter and

tern preserve.

Since the Earth Day Restoration and Cleanup program was developed

in 1998, it has received $570,000 grants. About 40,000 participants

have contributed more than 173,000 volunteer hours.

Nearby, residents will also be gathering to clean up Big Shell

Wetland at Pacific Coast Highway, just north of Newland Street.

There, Jan Vandersloot, founder of the activist Ocean Outfall

Group, Planning Commissioner Steve Ray and Stephanie Barger,

executive director of the Earth Resource Foundation, will talk with

residents about the importance of preserving the wetlands and the

local ecosystem.

“We can only do so much, with just individuals,” said Mary-Jo

Baretich, who is organizing the cleanup. “We’re going to be cleaning

up near the Beach Boulevard area, too. This time it’s going to be a

much more thorough cleaning up.” Tours of Big Shell and Little Shell

wetlands will also be given.

“We’re trying to preserve what we have and make sure that birds

can return every year and have a nesting site “ Baretich said. “We

feel that this is one way to bring more emphasis to environmental

aspects of the area that is a viable wetland that can be restored and

protected.”

The city is also hosting a beach cleanup at the north side of the

Huntington Beach Pier.

The Bolsa Chica Land Trust and the Earth Resources Foundation,

which have both held Earth Day events in Huntington Beach in the

past, are instead manning a booth at the Earth Day festival at UC

Irvine. More than 30 nonprofit organizations are taking part and

organizers are expecting as many as 20,000 visitors.

“It’s the largest Earth Day in Orange County,” Barger said.

Barger feels that one centralized Earth Day celebration would

speak louder than many smaller ones scattered throughout the region.

“We’re really happy that UCI is putting on this huge Earth Day

event,” Barger said. “We’d like to get it so it’s something like what

happens in San Diego. Theirs is the hot place to go. You get all

walks of life and that way you’re not preaching to the choir all the

time.”